Jack's first shark.
'Chumming' duties
Something a little largerA two day shark trip hunting blues but, steaming from a new location for me -Penzance.
Some of the catches made by the professional shark angling skippers at this time of year are very impressive indeed with crews often picking up numbers of blue shark well into double figures and even catching the odd small porbeagle from the same ground.
I felt as if I'd 'done' Falmouth and fancied a bit of a change of scene so when my good mate Andy Howell (Specialised Charters) gave me info on the slipway at Penzance as an alternative launch site, I decided to give it a try.
I'd been keen to get my son Jack out for a spot of shark fishing and, being a Saturday, he was able to take time off from 'his, ever busy automotive business and join me for his first ever go at the 'toothy ones'.
The fishing wasn't exactly hectic, with four blue shark on the first day but, seeing as its a new area for me to target, I wasn't disappointed and it was especially rewarding to see my son enjoying playing and 'wrestling' his first ever shark. The fish being held up above looks deceivingly small in the picture as we're both well over six foot tall.
At one point, we were joined by a very small shark swimming at the boat of less than a metre in length. Although it was undoubtedly attracted by the bait dangled in front of its snout, it obviously decided against taking it and it was a bit on the small side for us to want to catch it anyway. We quite happily filmed it on the Go-Pro, and fed it on 'chunks', which it took readily, and she thoroughly entertained us for a quarter of an hour. Sometimes, its not just about 'catching'.
The film can be found here; https://youtu.be/3HYKZfT4ZEo
Day two saw me venturing out solo, only my second attempt at doing so, but was no less enjoyable. The shark took a while to pick up the trail but I ended the day with the same number of fish all cleanly released.
Highlight however, was when a pod of common dolphins decided to put on a show for me and again , I managed to capture some of the action on the Go-Pro . Appearing suddenly out of nowhere, they were regularly swimming right through my 'spread' of baits but are obviously intelligent enough to ignore them.........thankfully. Listen carefully to the film and you'll hear their sonar 'clicks' as they pass the boat-truly fantastic stuff.
https://youtu.be/NINSdX9vISE
Penzance proved to be an excellent launch location and will no doubt be visited again , with 'Jupiter' in tow, sometime in the future.
I'm unsure whether I'll be able to fit another South West shark run in before the end of the year and , with just three trips under my belt this time around, I've done far less that I intended. As usual the weather patterns haven't helped as I really need at least two clear days to make a trip worthwhile, and it's been a tricky year on that score . We'll see.
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